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12" 6.5 Grendel 3 Month Review

I've had a 12" Grendel project in the works for a while. Finally got it together earlier this year, took it out to 800yds at one of my LR courses in May.

Even with a little 1-4x GRSC discontinued Korean scope, it was almost boring hitting a mini buffalo silhouette at 800yds.

Here's the particular canyon range I'm talking about with the 800yd buffalo indicated with a red dot:

All the closer targets from 150-500yds were boring to shoot as well. I field-zero'd it on one of the steel bowling-pin like targets, then proceeded to use the stadia lines to engage further 18" steel plates. Thing was smokin' steel right out of the gate, with a lot of audible impact on the steel to the shooter and spotters.

Muzzle climb is noticeably more than an 18" Grendel, but I was shooting with improvised support, no bipod, off the bench. I would say the recoil unsuppressed is halfway between an AK and a 16" or 18" Grendel, but definitely a little more muzzle climb than 5.56 when shooting 123gr from the Grendel.

I shot it another time after that at distance. All ammo up to that time has been 123gr Hornady American Gunner ($139.99 at Sportsman's Warehouse for 200), and has run 100% like a champ. I expected to have problems with this set-up since I was testing 2 new major component systems at the same time with the Maxim Defense PDW, and a group buy 12" Faxon barrel. Instead, it ran like a raped ape, perfect 4 o'clock ejection, always locked on last round, just really nice cyclic rate behavior out of the gate with 123gr Hornady AG.

While I was at Scout camp last month, as soon as we got to the lake and put the boat in the water, I get a call from my NFA dealer, letting me know my TBAC can was free from jail. Had to wait a week, but what's another week when you've waited for 10 months. This past Friday, I finally got to chronograph the little blaster with and without the suppressor to get some baseline numbers.

I'm using a Bootleg Adjustable Gas Bolt Carrier, and ended up turning it all the way to the Suppressed position. It's a very easy system to use by simply turning the regulator with a small flat head, which is accessible through the ejection port-no need to disassembly anything.

So far, this little blaster is genuinely exceeding my expectations, and everything ballistics programs said it should do, it has so far at distance. I'll be testing some better target bullets for distance, and hunting bullets for 200-400yds. Those include:

It's funny because I was just takling to my buddy about starting a Grendel upper, and remarked that faxon made a 12" barrel. I just installed their 14.5" match gunner in 556, and want to get it out with my 77gr ammo and see what it will do.

For a hunting/SPR rifle I was thinking of building a 18" match gunner in 6.5 Grendel. What kind of velocity are you getting from your 18?

You and I think along the same lines. Iíve been experimenting with 129 gr. Accubond LRís in this build. With IMR 8208 XBR, Iím getting just under 2100 FPS into one m.o.a with the Ballistic Advantage barrel. With the minimum expansion velocity of this bullet (1300 FPS), this load should theoretically be good out ~650 yards where I hunt